Ordnance



A. SMITH.

ORDNANCE. APPLICATION FILED NOV-14,1916.

1,376,231. Pam mm; 26, 1921.

3 SHEETSSHEET- I.

/ I ,lll "I In A TTOR/I/EKS A. SMITH.

OR DNANCE.

APPLICATION FILED NOV- l.4., I916- 1,376,231. V Patnted Apr. 26,1921. j

3 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

INVENTOR .flugusius Smiih ATTOR/VEVL A. SMITH.

ORDN'ANGE.

APPLICATION FILED NOV. 14, I9l6.

1.3176231. Patented Apr. 26, 1921.

ofugasius Smiih By M m ATTORNEYS UNI ED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

AUGUSTUS SMITH, OF ROSELLE, NEW JERSEY, ASSIGNOR TO BERGEN POINT IRON WORKS, OF BAYONNE, NEW JERSEY, A CORPORATION OF NEW JERSEY.

ORDNANCE.

Application filed November T0 aZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, AUGUSTUS SMITH, a citizen of the United States of America, and residing at Roselle, in the county of Union and State of New Jersey, have invented a certain new and Improved Ordnance, of.

nance of this type, (2) an improved gun mounting, (3) means for turning the gun in azimuth through 360 of are, if necessary, without endangering the equilibrium of the mounting on the firing of the gun, (4t) means for absorbing the recoil of the gun within a reasonable space, (5) means for utilizing the force of recoil toward preparing the gun for the next shot.

In the accompanying more or less diagrammatic drawings,

Figure 1 is a side elevation of a gun and f. its mountingin which my invention is illus-' 1 131, axles 32 and boxes 33 are all of Master I lSQCar Builder type, the weights being carried {on springs (not shown) over the journals as f in customary freight car practice. The lost motion at the boxes and bolsters would be tratively embodied in one form;

Fig. 2 is a plan of the same;

Fig. 3 is a plan of a detail;

Fig. 4c is a sectional side elevation of the latter;

Fig. 5 is a sectional end elevation of the same;

Fig. 6 is a plan of portion of the gun carriage track;

tFig. is a diagram of a partial track layou V Fig. 8 is a side elevation of a recoil checking device;

Figs. 9 and 10 are end and plan views of the same; 7

Fig. 11 is a sectional side elevation ofa gun elevating and lowering mechanism; and

Fig. 12 is a plan thereof. 7

To illustrate my invention I have shown in Fig. 1 a typical coast defense rifle 20 which is on rigid trunnion bearings 21 solidly fastened to the girders 22 of a specially constructed railway carriage. It will be understood that instead of 'mounting the gun trunnions directly on the frame of the carriage the gun could be carried in a sleeve whose trunnions were supported on the rail- Specification of Letters Patent. Patented Apr. 26, 1921. 7

14, 1916. Serial No. 131,290.

way carriage as in the case of a Barbette mount or Navy mount. In the two latter types of mount the shock of the recoil would be immediately absorbed by a hydraulic cylinder or cylinders in the customary way, whereas in the simple style shown in Fig. 1 the shock of the recoil would be taken directly by the carriage. The choice between the two types of mountings depends on the stresses involved and either may be adopted without departing from the invention on which I now seek Letters Patent. I have consequently shown the gun mounted in the simple oldfashioned way as illustrated, for the sake of simplicity.

The railway carriage shown in Figs. 1 and 2 is provided with king pins 23 sothat the master trucks 24, 25, may swivel with respect to the main carriage frame, while the 'bogie trucks 26, 27, 28, 29, in turn swivel :t lunder the master trucks on their king pins,

30, so that the railway carriage as a whole can easily negotiate any curves encountered in a standard gage railway. The wheels eliminated, when the gun is to be fired, by suitable jack screws, not shown on'the drawing in the interest of simplicity. r

The carriage is mounted on a track 84- so that the riflemay be transported from place to place thereon. At predetermined points 35, which for convenience I will call sighting points, the track. is preferably laid in a loop. While only asingle sighting point may be provided for the rifle, there may be several connected by the track so that the rifle may move from one to another, since thus as the enemy obtains the range of one sighting point, the gun may be speedily shifted to another from which it can operate in safety until its range has also been ascertained. This further. enables the defense to concentrate several rifles at one sighting Fig. 7, and, for the length of the are within which the gun is to be fired, the rails should be laid very carefully to level grade and accurate gage. inner rails should be taken so that the circumference of the circle of either the outside of the outer rail or the inside of the inner rail heads should be accurately and "definitely known. For instance, it would' be convenient to take either of these radii, as circumstances might indicate as preferable, so that the circumference of the circle for that portion of the track on which the gun would be fired, would be1 800' feet. In this case one degree of arc would be five feet and one inch would correspond to one minute of arc. Of. course it is not essential that the track at the sighting point be laid inacomplete circle,,sinceit sufiices to lay it merely through the arc'within which the gun is to be fired, as for instance at 361(Fig.'7). For convenience of manipulation andtransfer of the carriage, however, I prefer to lay the track in a complete circle, only that portion from which the. gun is to be fired needing the accurate, laying just mentioned.

It is clear that if the direction of a tangent to the circle at any iven point with respect to the base line 0' the range-finding survey system were known, the distance of the gun carriage along the track from the point of tangency so determined would indicate the variation of the 'aXis of the gun in azimuth either to the right or left of the known tangent, so that the direction of the gunin. azimuth could be accurately determined by itspositionon the track measured from the given known point. This feature does away with the necessity of swinging the gun on a vertical axis in azimuth on the carriage, which would obviously entail very serious results were the gun to be fired at any great angle with the center line of the track, besides involving numerous difficulties in the. construction of the carriage itself which are avoided by the system.

In order to center the gun more accurately with respect to the track so that dependence is not placed on the flanges of the wheels, which would ordinarily "have the play between the flanges and the rails,..and then main in the journals, that is customary'in NIaster Car Builders practice, I would provide on my gun carriage at least four vertical wheels 37 arranged to bear against the inside heads of the rails, as shown inFigs. 8, 4 and 5. These would preferably be placed at the cross frames 38. ofthemaster trucks and be pivoted at 39 so as to permittheir being swung up out of the way, as shown dotted in Fig. 5 when the gun is in transit from one. place to another, or to be swung down as shown by the full lines in Figs. 4 and 5 whenthe gunis in use on The radius to the outer and firing. It will be understood that the screws '40 locating and holding these vertical wheels in firing position will be marked so that they will indicate when the gun carriage is exactly and properly placed with respect to the center of the track.

'It is apparent that when direct sighting 'of'the gun on thetarget is possible, accurate determination of azimuth is not essential, and for such work any curved track would enable the gun to be swung in azimuth, provided only that the radius of curvature was not too, small and that the length of curved track was suflicient to affordfthe, necessary angle of fire. The fundamental principle of swinging. the gun in azimuth by moving it forward and back ward on the track would still obtain. The

determination of the exact angle of fire would insuch a case depend entirely on the sights and gun pointer. For such work,

however, the track should be laid level to I obtain correct results in elevation and range, so that .itwould nevertheless be to this eX- tenta specially laid piece of track.

In order to absorb the shock of the recoil I provide behind several of the axles on the car a sliding shoe 41, shown in'Figs. 8, 9 and 10, which is held against the wheels on the breech side thereof'by means of the drag chains 42, shown inFig. l0 and i which are pushed backward, should the gun shoes as shown in Fig. 8, say from position a to position b, which sliding friction would absorb. the recoil of thegun within a rea-.

sonable space providing the shoes were placed undera sufiicient number of the wheels of the gun carriage. It will be understood that this brake shoe device will be thrown across the rails behind .the wheels 7 when the gun is in actionand will be disconnected by withdrawing suitable pins 44 and 45 so as to get it out of theway altogetherwhen the gun is to be moved for any distance from one location to another.

These sliding brake'shoes provide a means by which the gun can be tilted down from firing position to. loading position during the interval of the recoil, utilizing the energy of the recoil for power as follows Let us suppose that brake shoes are provided behind the wheels of trucks 26, 28 and 29 in Fig. 1, but that no brake shoes are carriage'moves backward on the recoil of the n. This fact may be taken advantage of in a. number .of ways to provide power for swinging the gun from the firing position tov the horizontal position in which it should be loaded; A .suitable means for accomplishing this end is illustrated in Figs. 11 and 12. The wheels of truck 27 are coupled together by chain 46 running over sprockets 47, so that both drive gear 48 meshing with pinion 49 on shaft 50. The worm 51 on the latter meshes with worm wheel 52 on spindle 53, and the bevel gear 54 at one .end of the latter drives the double bevel wheel 55 on king pin 30, with which in turn meshes bevel ear 56 on shaft 57 carried by truck 25. imilarly the wheels of truck 26 are geared through'its king pin so that when they revolve they will turn shaft 58. Now the gearing is so arranged between the truck wheels and shafts 57 and 58 that if both trucks move in the same direction, either forward or backward, and the wheels there of turn, shafts 57v and 58 will revolve in opposite directions.

On the ends of these shafts are mounted the bevel gears 59 and 60 of a differential gear box such as is employed on the rear axle of an automobile, so that if shafts 57 and 58 revolve in opposite directions, no motion would be imparted to the gear 61 mounted on the outside of the differential gear box; but if shaft 58 stood still while shaft 57 revolved then the gear box and the gear wheel 61 mounted on it would revolve at half of the speed of shaft 57, causing the train of gears 62, 63 shown in Figs. 11 and 12, actuated by gear '61 and passing through the king pin of the master truck, to revolve. This condition would exist should the wheels of truck 27 be free to revolve under the re coil of the gun, causing shaft 57 to turn 'while the wheels of truck 26 sliding on the shoes, did not turn, causing'shaft 58 to stand. When, however, the gun carriage is moved slowly backward and forward so that the sliding shoes shown in Figs. 8, 9 and 10 behind the truck wheels of bogie trucks Now gear 61 may be connected through the king in of the master truckas shown in Figs. 10 and 11, so as to drive another differential gear mounting as shown at .64

in whichthe gear 65 would be driven by the train of gears and shafts, as shown, by gear 61, while gear 64 would be driven from the other end bymeans' of another system of shafts and gears either by a, hand crank66 or by an electricmotor 67. Thisarrange v ment o-fgears would enable either the train of gears driven by 61 or thetrain of gears driven by the hand crank and motor to drive the central frame of the differential device at 64 at half speed of either of the moving 7 trains. In the arrangement shown this central spindle is keyed to-a shaft which passes through the hollow quills in the trains of gears from 61 or from the hand crank'to the pair of bevel wheels 68,. one ofwhich is The operation of this device. would. be,

then, .that if the hand (or motor) elevating or depressing device were standing and the train of gears 61 were actuated by the recoil of the gun, as explained above, the consequent revolution of the crank disks 70 would pull the gun down to a level position in which it could be readily loaded. I

It will be understood that the ratios of the gearing will be sofigured that there will be sufficient scope of action to pull the gun to a horizontal position from its maximum elevation. If the gun should be fired from some elevation less than. the maximum the effect of therecoil would'be to pull thegun down to. the horizontal position for loading The gun could be elevated or depressed by means of thehand crank or electric motor acting through the other end of the-differential case 64 quite independently of the movement of the bevel wheels controlled by the movement of the carriage as a whole through gear 61. The operation of the hand or electric elevating mechanism offers nothing new and need not be further touched upon. I V

Itwill be understood that the carriage as a whole will be equipped with ordinary car couplers 72 at each end for movement to some distance by a locomotive and that one of the trucks would be provided with suitable slow means for slight movements along the tracks either-by hand or byelectric or other power. These features are of well known construction and need nlotbe'illustrated or described in detail. 7

Various modifications and. developments of the illustrated construction shown will readily occur to those skilled in the art, without departing from whatI claim as my invention. I i

I clai'm as my invention 1. In coast defense ordnance and the like, a traveling support, a gun mounted thereon in fixed position with relation to azimuth pointing, and a track curved on the arqor a true circle approximately tangent to the longitudinal axis of the gun and having a known angle and distance relation to "the baseline of therange-finding survey system,

on which track the support is'traveled.for azimuth pointing of the gun.

2. In coast defense ordnance and the like,

a traveling support,'a gun mounted therek on in fixed position with relation to azimuth pointing, and a track curved on the arc of a true circle approximately tangent to the, longitudinal axis of the gun and having a known angle and distance relation tothe base line of the range-finding survey system, on which track the support is traveled for azimuth pointing ofthe gun, 'and' means for forcing the gun support to travel in the arc of a true circle on said track when the gun is pointed. v

In coast defense ordnance and the like, a traveling support, a gun mounted thereon in fixed position withrelation to azimuth pointing, but susceptible ofangular eleva tion, and a track curved on thearc of a true circle approximatelytangent to the longitu} dinal axis of the gun and having a known angle and distance relation to the base line.

of the range-finding survey system, on'which track the support isv traveled for azimuth pointing of the gun. l 4:. In coast'defense ordnance and the like, a traveling support, a gun 'mountedthereon in fixed position with relation to azimuth pointing, and a track laid on the arc' of a true circle tangent to a line near and paral lel to: the axis of the gun an having. a known angle and distance relation to the base line of therange-finding. survey system, on which track the support is traveled for azimuth pointing of the gun. e

5 Incoast defense or lnance and the like, a traveling support, a gun mounted thereon in fixed posltion with relation to azimuth pointing, and a tracklaid exactly level and of accurate gage curved on the arc of a true circle tangent to. a line near, and parallel to,

the axis of'the gun and having a known angle and distance relation to the baseline f he ia ger h u vey ystem 0. whi h track the support is traveled for azimuth pointing of thegun. i

6, In coast defense ordnance and the like, a r e n rp Q t-a mount l r on in fixed position with relation to azimuth pointing, and a track laid exactly le velfon the arc of a true circle on which said support istraveledfor azimuth pointing of the gun, he l tt n n h a. p i io h t axis i c nstantly tan nt to we magin y cylindrical surface generated" around the center. of the circular track, WlilChitZQIltl together with the radiusj oiningit with the axis of. the is in known angle and disr tance relation to the bias? lineof the rangefinding survey system.

' 7. In coast defense ordnance and the like atraveling support, a gun'mountedfthereon susceptible of angular. elevation, and a track curved on the arc of a true circle approximately tangent to thelongitudi'nalaxis of the gun, and having a known angle and distance relation to the base line of the range-finding. survey system, on track t pper j eteled Mamet P i n of the'gun. H

8. In coast defense ordnance and the like, a tra in ppe t; a 'mo et d he eon susceptible of angular elevation, and a level track on the arc of a true circle on which said support is traveled for azimuth pointing of the gun, the latter lying in such a position that its axis is constantlytangent to an imaginary cylindrical surface generated around the center of the circular track, which center together with the radius oining'it with the axis of the gun is, in known angle and distance relation to the base line of the range-finding survey system.

7 9. In coast defense ordnance and the like, a traveling support, a gun mounted thereon, tracks on which said support travels, and friction shoes sliding on said tracks together with means carried by the support for moving the shoes, said means being sufficientto overcome the sliding friction of the shoes on the track, but insufficient to overcome any. considerable inertia of the.

for bloeking certain of the support wheels against rotation on recoil after firing and against rotation on recoil after'firing and gearing operated by the unblocked Wheels differential gearing operatively' connected 10 during the recoil movement for lowering the to the block and unblocked Wheels and servgun to position for reloading. ing during the recoil movement to lower the 12. In coast defense ordnance and the like, gun to position for reloading.

a Wheeled support, a gun mounted thereon In testimony whereof I have signed my and susceptible of angular elevation, means name to this specification. I

for blocln'ng certain of the support Wheels AUGUSTUS SMITH. 

